Tuesday

The following was written by Mark Goldberg and reprinted here with his permission. This is an email conversation I had with him. The exchange began with a personal note to Citizen Warrior. I wrote back and said, "I remember a few years ago reading about a Mark Goldberg (or maybe it was Goldman) who was instrumental in breaking a milk monopoly and then turned his attention to one of my favorite causes — breaking the oil monopoly. That wouldn't happen to be you, would it?"

Mark responded with this:

Nope, just a suburban father, self-employed fellow who happened to go into a health food store back in 1990 after a jog, and met some Middle Eastern guys hanging around a so-called "Palestinian" health food store and we got into a conversation. There was something not right about them, and I chalked it up to my late night studying and sleepless paranoia, and thought "my world is too narrow...I maybe should get out and mingle more."

Three years later when the WTC was bombed in '93 they were some of the guys who were the terrorists of that horror. It was then that I began to study some of the horror that is Islam, the Oslo fraud et al, as I began to make my modest income, and bring children into the world. Nothing so glorious as you mentioned...but who knows, there's hope for me yet :^)

I responded: "So by the time of 9/11 you must have actually understood what was happening, unlike me who was at that time completely ignorant of Islam. Was there one book or article or incident that 'flipped the switch' for you? Where you realized the unthinkable? That at its heart Islam is an aggressive, militant, political, bigoted ideology. What was it?"

Mark answered:

It was a combination of things. First, when I read Oriana Fallaci’s letter about the sickening hypocrisy of the Italians, Europeans, the left regarding the bigotry against Israel, the blowing up of innocents et al, in 2001 I think I was reminded of a conversation I had with an interesting guy I met in my youth regarding this issue. He was a Mongolian, a lama, a monk of the Tibetan Buddhist variety. He was a very interesting guy in many ways. We had a conversation once, back in '76 or so.

He asked me what I thought of the Arab-Jewish problem. I gave him what I thought he wanted to hear: a quasi-liberal we can show the Muslims how to attain peace as we have had to struggle for thousands of years blah blah blah.

He listened politely and when I was thru with what I thought would show what a peaceful, loving, strong man I was (or wanted to be) I asked him, "Sir, what do you think of the Arab-Jewish problem?"

He gave me a bit of a silent look that kind of went through me. I recognized it from other conversations about issues that I had seen him discuss, and it put me back on my heels a bit. It was like the feeling you get if your grandpa is laying in the intensive care unit of the hospital and you know it’s the last stop on the bus but it’s hard to face, and you impulsively ask the pleasant nurse who’s coming out of the room as you enter, "How’s Gramps doing??" and she smiles at you. That terribly forgiving smile. And she says, "The doctors are doing everything they can for him."

And that terribly forgiving smile and the delay from that old man who knew Islam way more than I ever imagined or thought anyone had to know said something to me. I never heard him debate religions or compare or any of that. But here he was quite succinct. He smiled that terribly forgiving smile at me…and I knew…uh oh...And he said..."Islam…is a devil’s religion." And he smiled that forgiving smile as I fought to deny the meaning of what he said.

But I had (and still have) enormous respect for that guy, and it took years of poking around and getting a whiff of Islam which until that incident in '90 didn't click at all but by '93 made me read the Oslo Accords and think "this…is madness."

But not the scholar like yourself, and struggling to make my modest living in my work, I just kind of poked at it, of course, until Fallaci’s brave retort and response. Then I went to Israel on a trip five years in a row, and saw for myself which way the sun rose and set and, of course, I was reading Robert Spencer by then, and that Christian guy whose site is no more — the prophetofdoom — and Fallaci’s Rage and the Pride and The Force of Reason and so it began. I'm a bit amazed by people such as yourself, who knew zip in 2001, and have come so far with your blogging capabilities.

I said: "That was an interesting response from the Buddhist. Not at all what you'd expect to hear from a Tibetan monk! No wonder it left an impression."

Mark responded:

Indeed. I got pretty steamed hearing the Dalai Lama back in 2006 or so mouthing on about how the Israelis should engage in negotiations with Hamas.

He was soon proven wrong and I think sort of said so, but the damage was already done. He also wrote a book which seems to have forgotten the history of Buddhism which is simply this: The Buddhists had the largest school in the world, called Nalanda back in 1036 or thereabouts in India. The Muslims came in and announced that everyone had to convert to Islam. The Buddhists said that the Muslims could take over everything and control it, and all the Buddhists wanted was to practice religion. The Muslims' reply was to cut their heads off and put them on poles. The Buddhists who survived ran off to Tibet and were cut off from India for centuries. The Muslims wound up killing some 60 million or more of Hindus in India over these 1000 years.

SO we see what happened to India as the serpent entered their midst. Blind are some who go about in a name of righteousness, in the Pride of their stature. So for Israel to invite the devil in, after dancing so long, would be quite contrary, even if they took the advice of a Hindu, after all they dance with the serpents, held captive in a vessel, from time to time, suffering of its poisonous way. The man was right, Islam is a devil religion, as in their Pride they can't see the underlying spirit of the way they go; making sacrifice of the innocent unto the god of force, in the way of death. Unfortunately the whole world is deceived by the unseen spirit of its way, bound in fear and doubt, going the way of Man, who goes about in his own way, in the blindness of Pride. We give our children of our spirits of error; and then punish them when they rise to use them for their own happiness. They are bound in the spirit of force in our traditions of forced worship; feeling bound they are set free in time, to be as a wild animal in lawless pursuit of happiness, unbridled in the way as beast. But when we guide them in meekness in love, keeping bound the spirits of force, guiding them strait in truth, they willingly go our way heeding to our voice.

We go about being tempted by the like of ISIS to sacrifice our own as their spirit of death makes sacrifice of those who follow them, forced under the penalty of death. Pride pits man against the Pride of another who overcomes fear given, like that of a RAM who buts heads. We see they really believe in their way, not unlike those of JIM Jones, who used the name of God in the way of error leading to many sacrifices. Its the underlying spirit of the way that bares fruit of death, even as we see the invisible spirit of gravity only by its effects. Just as there are laws of science there are laws of the spirit, cause and effect. When a spirit rises against one it does rise in the other, who might take it to the next level in Pride, or concede in fear. The real danger of Islam as you know, is their belief in sacrificing themselves- and their children; a kin to Baal worship. They are bound in a spirit of belief, going its way in hearing to take part; that it became part of them, of their way passed down the generations, but it is a way of death, opposite that of Christ whose underlying spirit of his way is to preserve life. If we don't recognize the truth of the words of Jesus we shall suffer the wrath of our own ignorance, even concerning the way of the Goat. If we go the way of the dragon, and in the smoke of his flames he don't get us, his tail usually will, doing the most damage, as it comes to pass. Islam is like a goat who believes the whole field is his; its like a serpent, stealthy camouflaged to its surroundings until it strikes quickly, as a poison slowly kills, death even, in squeezing out the breath of life. Its a Noble thing to speak the truth, as it does set us free; those who go its way have peace, even as the thief of the cross spoke the truth, free of the fear of death. But to go the way of error, in denying truth, is a way in the spirit of that error, that leads to suffering and sacrifice. You make truth known.

Fascinating read and lots of info for further research. For example I learned in following this thread that modern Gypsies in Europe are possibly from the Hindu Kush area, displaced centuries ago by the rise of Islam in India. I also learned that the name Hindu Kush literally means Hindu slaughter, harking back to the Muslim raids.

I would like to learn more about Islam and India, can you recommend a specific book to further my studies? Thank you for all of your work and all you do to waken us all up.

I answered his question with this: The main book I recommend is the Koran. CSPI's version. I read "A Simple Koran," which is the whole Koran. There's another one called "An Abridged Koran" that contains all the content of the Koran, but with the repetition removed. It's only 200 pages, in plain English.

It makes a huge difference when talking to people about Islam that you can say you have read the core book itself. It puts the conversation on a whole different level.

Index for the Quran

Chronological Order

If you have a traditional Qur'an, get a PDF document to help you read the chapters in the order they were revealed rather than the traditional order (which is the longest to the shortest chapter): Click here.

Start Your Own Leaflet Campaign

Use this very informative and economical leaflet to help educate your fellow non-Muslims about Islam. Click here to read about the idea and get links to the PDF downloads.

Pamphlets and Leaflets

Print these out and use them to help you inform your fellow non-Muslims: Click here.

Brochure About Islam

This is a full color PDF document to print a two-sided brochure about basic information on Islam:

Let's Help Each Other

Take the Pledge

Some people say Islam is a religion of peace and that Islam has been hijacked by extremists, terrorists, and stealth jihadists who twist and distort the peaceful teachings of the Quran and quote it out of context.

Others say that political, supremacist, and even violent teachings are fundamental to Islam, and that people who say otherwise either haven’t read the Quran or are protecting Islam with religious deception (taqiyya).

The general confusion about the nature of Islam makes us collectively unable to make informed decisions. You can help end this confusion by reading the Quran. Stop believing what other people say and find out for yourself.

Article Spotlight

It illustrates the Islamic Supremacist vision by showing the similarity between what happened in the movie, Pleasantville, and what devout fundamentalist Muslims are trying to create in Islamic states like Syria, Pakistan, or Saudi Arabia (and ultimately everywhere in the world).